The Pain of Loss
by trueroyalblue
Summary: James Gordon Jr's reaction when he first heard his father was dead. Now turned into a drabble series based on character's reactions to Gordon's "death". Trust me, this isn't all angst!
1. James Gordon Jr

This is a little something I came up with a few nights ago when I couldn't sleep at two in the morning. (So beware, it might be a bit rocky in parts) This is the first time I've tried to do Batman fanfiction, and I hope I got everything right.

I'm a bit surprised no one else has done something like this yet, but oh well. Maybe someone has and I just haven't seen it... This might turn into a drabble series about Gordon's death from different perspectives if I get enough positive feedback.

I saw The Dark Knight and I absolutely LOVE IT!! Just PM me if you want to talk about it, because I could talk about that movie 24/7 and never get tired of discussing it!!

I don't own Batman OR The Dark Knight. Though I wish I did. :o)

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The Pain of Loss

I remembered when the cops told my mom the news; that my father –Commissioner Gordon- was dead. I didn't have to try to feel mom's world crash around her. The man she loved, the man she married, one of the bravest, greatest, inspiring men in Gotham City was gone. Dead. Never coming back. Ever.

Dad was a cop –an idealist. So in a way, I guess we should feel lucky he lived THIS long without being killed. It was so hard to believe, so shocking, I couldn't even begin to wrap my mind around it. Couldn't imagine not waiting up for dad to come home –exhausted- late at night (and sometimes early morning), only to see him leave early the next morning. It was too hard of an idea to even think about, to just understand at the bare minimum.

All of a sudden, a wave of uncontrollable pity and sorrow for Bruce Wayne coursed through me. How could someone even bear to watch your parents be shot, right before your own eyes? Especially when you're only a kid. It was sickening, how cruel the world could be to some people.

I guess I always knew the world could be cruel, but it only fully sunk in now; and even then it was hard to believe.

I couldn't bring myself to listen to the tale the cops told of how dad died. Something about saving Harvey Dent, I think. That's not fair; Harvey Dent doesn't have a family to come back to; doesn't have a son and daughter to come home to. To love with all his heart, like mine did. I knew it was selfish, but I didn't really care.

Because even if dad wasn't around as much as mom would like him to be, I know he loves me. But maybe that's why dad saved Harvey Dent's life. Not because he was a good man, but so he could have an opportunity to have a wife and kids of his own. More time to save Gotham. The White Knight, as many of our neighbors called him.

I've just now managed to re-focus my eyes again, and the first thing I saw was _him._ The masked hero the police were after; the Batman. It was hard to read his expression, as half of it was covered in a mask. I noticed vaguely that he had brown eyes.

Dad had called Batman the Dark Knight once. It made sense; Gotham's White Knight –Harvey Dent- the one who the public trusted without a doubt. Gotham's people would jump off the edge of a high cliff if Harvey Dent said Heaven was at the bottom. Gotham's Dark Knight –Batman- was unpredictable It didn't help that the media and more than half of the cops were after him. He wasn't nearly as trusted as Harvey Dent was, unintentionally making him the Dark Knight of Gotham City.

The next thing I saw was mom, sobbing hysterically as the pair of cops vainly attempted to comfort her. It didn't help at all- if only, it made it worse.

I knew I wasn't supposed to be up this late, but I almost always stayed up and waited for dad to come home. Even if he comes home at three or four in the morning some nights. Sometimes mom catches me awake in my bed, and usually she lets me stay up with her, even on a school night. We wait together for dad to come home- back home to us.

Once my teacher made us write a paragraph or two about what I want to be when I grow up, I told her I wanted to be a cop- just like my dad. He's a good man, and wanted to make a difference in the world, just like me. And he did. Dad saved the life of one of the most important people in Gotham City's today. He helped make the police department uncorrupt –at least the ones under his control.

I blinked, and Batman was gone. I looked around me, hoping he was somewhere else around here. He wasn't. It was strange –up until now, I had only felt fully protected, safe, whenever dad was with me. Now I felt safe whenever Batman was around me too.

Now the man I looked up to in so many ways, the kind of man I wanted to be, the father that I love without a doubt, was gone forever, and wasn't coming back. I shook my head, hoping I'd wake up and this would all be a bad dream, and mom and dad would come in and tell me it'd be ok. But deep down in my heart, I knew that would never be able to happen.

--

I couldn't sleep that night. Not just because of the normal creakiness of the cold house (I was used to that), but because of the hysterical, grieving sobs of mom- which were still loud even with my door and her door shut. Taking a deep breath to (hopefully) control myself, I climbed out of my bed and tiptoed into mom and dad's bedroom.

Cracking open the door, I saw mom lying at the foot of her bed, sobbing and weeping over a picture frame that shook in her pale hands. I was still unable to feel anything- the cold numbness surrounded me, and I shivered, crossing my arms in hopes of warming them up. Deep down, I knew they wouldn't. Not anytime soon.

The floorboards creaked as I moved towards her, and somehow she heard me through her laments over her husband. My father. Mom looked at me through her tear-streaked face, and the picture fell from her grasp, falling to the floor with a crash. I moved towards it, and I saw it was a picture of mom and dad on their wedding day.

Something inside me broke when I saw that picture, and silent tears fell down my face in waves as I stared, unmoving, unthinking, at it. Mom saw this, and pulled me into a fierce hug. After a pause, I hugged her back tightly, not wanted to ever let go, to let the moment end. Never, ever, ever.

Mom pulled me onto her lap, where we just sat on the bed together, silently thinking about the same person we both loved and needed. We needed each other, and I knew we needed to be a family now more than ever. The word 'family' brought my thoughts to my sister, and I wondered vaguely where she was, before I remembered she was still asleep when they told us. Let her have one more night of sleep knowing dad was still alive.

In this hug, embrace, I realized that mom really believed dad was really, truly, utterly, dead. That's when it finally sunk in; the cold feeling of numbness went away, to allow the horrid, strong pain to come into my body, to envelop my mind with the unbelieveable pain of loss.

I began to shake uncontrollably in mom's warm arms as more tears ran down my face. Mom only gripped me tighter, which I was grateful for. _I'd never get to see my dad again._ I buried my face where her neck and shoulders connected as seizure after seizure of pain struck me. I cried until mom's nightgown was soaked through, and some more as the relentless pain of dad's death went through my body; from the hair on my head to the very edges of my ragged toenails, not missing a beat, no matter how much I wanted it to.

Mom and I stayed like this for countless hours as I tried to accept the fact dad was dead, and I'd never get to see him walk through our front door again, no matter how long I waited.

--

_"That impossible anger strangling the grief, until the memory of your loved one is just... poison in your veins. And one day, you catch yourself wishing the person you loved had never existed, so you'd be spared your pain."_


	2. Bruce Wayne

Hey, guys! I know it's been a while, but I just re-watched the movie for perhaps the hundredth time last night, and it inspired me to write this. I AM turning this into a drabble series, but BEWARE: I will most likely update like, twice every year. Hopefully more then that, but we'll see where this takes us.

Thanks for all of your reviews and support! Tis appriciated (:.

This is in Bruce's point of view. I don't think it's as angsty as the original, but hopefully still good. Who should I write about next?

And no, I do not own The Dark Knight. HOWEVER, I DO own it on DVD. Blu Ray, in fact. Amazing :)

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All I could do was stand by and watch as I saw Lieutenant Gordon hurl himself in front of the speaker as the gunshot went off. I only stood there as the people of Gotham started to panic and run around screaming. All I could see was Gordon's still body lying motionless on the ground. Everything else around me seemed to go away unnoticed, and it was just me and Gordon in what seemed like a very different world.

For the first (or second) time in my life, I realized just how important Jim Gordon was to me. Not just a source for Batman, but to me as well.

When my parents were murdered, Gordon was the only cop in the station who showed me genuine sympathy. Or empathy. I never really learned the difference. And that was what drew me to Gordon first when I had first started my career as Batman.

Come to think of it, I had always taken the cop for granted. I had involuntarily and childishly expected Jim Gordon to be around all my life, even if it was unrealistic. There was no other cop I trusted as much as him, and I bit my lip as I thought about it. Aside from Alfred, Gordon was the closest thing I had to a father.

He always tried to make the right decision, and seemed unfazed when people tried to corrupt him. That was why I respected… no, looked up to him. Gordon was a hero in his own right. He was the knight of Gotham everyone overlooked. It was always "Thanks to Harvey Dent…" or "Thanks to Batman…", but it was never "Thanks to Jim Gordon…"

Gordon deserved more credit for however safer the streets became before the Joker came into the picture. He didn't care about what other people thought of him; he always did what he knew to be right. That was one of the best qualities Gordon had, and what I admired most about him.

I wished I had gotten to know Gordon as Bruce Wayne instead of Batman, I really did. But if I let down my "playboy" act down in front of Gordon, he might get suspicious and connect the dots.

I wanted to invite Gordon over for the Christmas dinner that just me and Alfred had, to spend more time with him, not as Batman. I didn't want Gordon to remember me as the billionaire playboy. It made me sad when I couldn't tell Gordon the truth.

I couldn't look at Gordon's body anymore, I just couldn't. But I couldn't tear my eyes away, either. It was like one of those things where the scene was so terrible you wanted to look away, but the scene just drew you into it, and wouldn't let you look away, no matter how hard you tried.

I knew I should do something; I was Batman, for Christ's sake! It was my job to stop things like this, but I was too late this time. And this one mistake had cost the best cop in Gotham his life. I put my hands on the railing and closed my eyes, throwing my head back.

Gordon's death had reminded me of how helpless, how _human_ I really was. It brought back scary and painful memories from when my parents were killed, and how helpless I was to stop it. How come it seemed like I could save people, just not the ones I cared about most?

What if something happened to Alfred or Rachel, and I wasn't able to save them? What if I tried… and failed? Would I be able to handle their deaths?

I bit my lip so hard that it started to bleed. I tried to forget I had ever thought things like that. Forget what happened to Gordon… forget what could happen to Rachel and Alfred… but I couldn't.

It was at that moment I realized what my worst fear was. Letting the people I cared about down, being helpless to save them. It had already happened to my parents… even if I had been too young to really fully understand what was going on until it was too late. Now I had let Gordon down, too. I hadn't saved him, and I could've done something to stop his death.

Batman wasn't supposed to have flaws; he was supposed to be this inhumane figure that was invincible and strike fear into the hearts of criminals. Batman still did that, but maybe the flaws I had as Bruce Wayne was what made Batman more than just a creature of the night. It made Batman human. That made the Batman not as invincible and more like the average human.

That was what made Batman special. The flaws of Bruce Wayne made Batman more than just a vigilante. It made him a legend.

--

That night, I couldn't sleep. I had gotten back late; so late, Alfred had just given up and went to bed. I could only think about what happened today, about Gordon. I regretted going to watch the cops tell his wife, Barbara, the news about her husband.

I'll never forget that, her hysterical screaming that turned into sobbing. But even more heartbreaking was the mystified, lost look on her sons face. It reminded me too much of when my own parents died, of how I must've looked.

Was she right? Did I really cause all of this? I buried the pillow in my head, frustrated. I was only trying to help; I didn't want to cause more people to die. Batman was supposed to inspire good, not this chaos, not death. Especially the death of good people. Good people were something Gotham seemed to be short on. It was sad, but true.

Gordon had not deserved this fate. He didn't deserve to die so soon, so early, only leaving a grieving family of three behind. Gordon deserved better than this. But life wasn't fair, and people didn't always get what they deserve, good or bad. However, I don't think he would rather have gone any other way. No regrets. Not in this business.

--

"_Death does not wait for you to be ready! Death is not considerate, or fair! And make no mistake: here, you face Death."_


End file.
